November 14th, 2012
I arrived at the tea farm in Shizuoka where I will be volunteering. Everything went smoothly, from Chicago to Hamamatsu. I was so happy to be back in Japan last night that I celebrated by grabbing dinner at a Chu-ka restaurant even though I wasn't hungry. I chatted with the waitress in Japanese and my very poor Chinese.
If there's one thing that this trip has taught me so far, it's that I should keep up with the languages that I have studied. French, Japanese, Chinese, Swedish. There's no reason why I shouldn't be able to keep improving in all four.
I hiked from Hamamatsu station to the castle. It's a small castle, but it offers a great view and the park surrounding it is perhaps the most beautiful public park that I've seen in Japan.
November 15th
I woke up around six this morning and hiked around the tea fields as the sun rose over the mountains. What a beautiful place. I'm always struck at how beautiful and mountainous so many parts of this country are.
We ate brown rice and miso-shiru for breakfast. I tasted pungent pickles for the first time in over twenty one months, and finished it all off with slices of persimmon.
After lunch we rode to the small rented field that Daisuke is taking over from an elderly woman. The tea bushes were already cleared out and stacked, making a barrier between the road and the field. We evened the ground and dug rows sixty centimeters apart, into which we planted wheat seeds. We then set up an electric fence around the field. AFter breaking for mikan and kinako-mochi, we pulled shiiroi-hana from the bottom of a rented tea field. Children use the white insides of the black seed pods to paint their faces white.
I'm basking in the sun now, looking out over the beautifully groom3ed tea bushes and the mountains beyond. It's a beautiful autumn day. Most of the trees still haven't even turned color. I'm extremely lucky to be here right now and able to do this.
Later:
I went hunting with Daisuke in the afternoon. Some other hunters in the party bagged a wild boar and an eight point buck. I watched as they skinned the animals and cut the meat. The boar had so many ticks on it that its fur seemed to be alive and moving. We ate sashimi sliced from the deer liver and heart, followed by a large pot of liver nabe and washed down with some hot sake.
After dinner, I read a picture book for the child, Seita. I was embarrassed at my slow reading of the phonetic hiragana script, but he surprisingly kept his interest.
November 16th
I tasted a yuzu today. The taste was sublime, and it left me feeling alive and healthy. We gathered the yuzu into a yellow bin, and Madoka will turn them into a jam. Yuzu trees are covered in nasty thorns, so we picked with cauthion. OUr lunch consisted of a mizuna salad, a daikon-chrysanthemum salad, fish from Izu-hanto, and shiitake and leeks grilled on a tabletop hot plate. Daisuke's relatives came and we ate outside in the warm sunshine.
Evening came and Daisuke's relatives invited us to dinner at the ryokan. The dinner was outstanding, especially the ayuwa fish caught from local rivers. Kat, the Australian wwoofer, talked about the work she had done in Bangledesh, and everyone was very impressed.
November 17th
Today went by fast. The rain fell hard in the morning and continued all day. We made yuzu jam in the morning, using natural pectin from the seeds. After making yuzu jam, we packed small packets of green tea; thirty of them into one bag. Daisuke's relatives came for the morning and helped us pack. We said goodbye after a tea break of manju and bread. Kat and I then played with Seita for several hours before accompanying the family into town.
November 18th
I'm at the Haruno-cho festival today. I already ate two sweet potatoes and okonomiyake (cabbage pancake). We're waiting to see Daisuke and Madoka in thier dance performances. We just watched an eating contest. One chubby townsman downed his seven bowls of noodles long before any of the others. It was the clearest victory I'd seen in anything in a long time.
I felt a surreal flashback when three schoolgirls ran up to me calling my name. Are they former students from Iiyama? How did they get here? What are they doing in this small town in the mountains of Shizuoka prefecture? All of these questions flashed in my mind before I realized that they were from the evening cram school that Daisuke and Madoka ran. I had introduced myself to the group when I first arrived in Haruno-cho. The experience took me back to living in Iiyama when hearing high school aged students call out my name was a daily occurrence.
November 19th
I had been keeping a pretty good journal, but through my desire study Japanese I missed two days. ON the 19th, I helped Daisuke clear off the cedar boughs from the tea plants. The 20th found us weeding the tea fields across the street from where we were the day before. Daisuke pointed out the holes that wild boars had dug in search of earthworms. Both Kat and I did more weeding today. I enjoyed it, and I felt that I learned a little about tea farming. We ate sunchokes in miso-soup for lunch. I was prety excited to talk about sunchokes, as they had been one of my staple foods through the month of October.
Madoka entertained us with some old koto songs in the evening. I closed my eyes and felt as if I were in a fantasy world, where koto notes echoed through the bamboo forests.
November 20th
Today was the last full day of work. We shucked soybeans in the greenhouse for several hours. Madoka will use the white soybeans to make miso. Black soybeans can also be made into miso, but they are so rare that it's almost impossible to buy it in stores.
After work we jumped into the car and drove to the top of Mt. Haruno, where stood a thirteen century old cedar tree. I had seen old drees before, but this one was straight out of a fantasy setting. It called out for pointy eared folk to construct cabins in its cavernous crotches. Peering over the base of the cedar sat a shinto shrine. Most shrines in Japan are guarded by foxes or koma-inu, a fat dragon-looking dog. Some small shrines are even guarded by small mouse statues. This one, however, was guarded by wolves. As Daisuke explained, wolves were honored in former times because they kept down the population of crop eating beasts such as boar and deer.
As great as that ancient cedar was, it was the view from the parking lot that truly overwhelmed me. An entire mountain range unfolded before me, behind which rose the snowcapped peaks of the far off southern alps. Despite living in the hilly driftless area of Wisconsin, it had been almost two years since I had seen a view like that. It was a long overdue fix. I am a mountain addict.
I arrived at the tea farm in Shizuoka where I will be volunteering. Everything went smoothly, from Chicago to Hamamatsu. I was so happy to be back in Japan last night that I celebrated by grabbing dinner at a Chu-ka restaurant even though I wasn't hungry. I chatted with the waitress in Japanese and my very poor Chinese.
If there's one thing that this trip has taught me so far, it's that I should keep up with the languages that I have studied. French, Japanese, Chinese, Swedish. There's no reason why I shouldn't be able to keep improving in all four.
I hiked from Hamamatsu station to the castle. It's a small castle, but it offers a great view and the park surrounding it is perhaps the most beautiful public park that I've seen in Japan.
November 15th
I woke up around six this morning and hiked around the tea fields as the sun rose over the mountains. What a beautiful place. I'm always struck at how beautiful and mountainous so many parts of this country are.
We ate brown rice and miso-shiru for breakfast. I tasted pungent pickles for the first time in over twenty one months, and finished it all off with slices of persimmon.
After lunch we rode to the small rented field that Daisuke is taking over from an elderly woman. The tea bushes were already cleared out and stacked, making a barrier between the road and the field. We evened the ground and dug rows sixty centimeters apart, into which we planted wheat seeds. We then set up an electric fence around the field. AFter breaking for mikan and kinako-mochi, we pulled shiiroi-hana from the bottom of a rented tea field. Children use the white insides of the black seed pods to paint their faces white.
I'm basking in the sun now, looking out over the beautifully groom3ed tea bushes and the mountains beyond. It's a beautiful autumn day. Most of the trees still haven't even turned color. I'm extremely lucky to be here right now and able to do this.
Later:
I went hunting with Daisuke in the afternoon. Some other hunters in the party bagged a wild boar and an eight point buck. I watched as they skinned the animals and cut the meat. The boar had so many ticks on it that its fur seemed to be alive and moving. We ate sashimi sliced from the deer liver and heart, followed by a large pot of liver nabe and washed down with some hot sake.
After dinner, I read a picture book for the child, Seita. I was embarrassed at my slow reading of the phonetic hiragana script, but he surprisingly kept his interest.
November 16th
I tasted a yuzu today. The taste was sublime, and it left me feeling alive and healthy. We gathered the yuzu into a yellow bin, and Madoka will turn them into a jam. Yuzu trees are covered in nasty thorns, so we picked with cauthion. OUr lunch consisted of a mizuna salad, a daikon-chrysanthemum salad, fish from Izu-hanto, and shiitake and leeks grilled on a tabletop hot plate. Daisuke's relatives came and we ate outside in the warm sunshine.
Evening came and Daisuke's relatives invited us to dinner at the ryokan. The dinner was outstanding, especially the ayuwa fish caught from local rivers. Kat, the Australian wwoofer, talked about the work she had done in Bangledesh, and everyone was very impressed.
November 17th
Today went by fast. The rain fell hard in the morning and continued all day. We made yuzu jam in the morning, using natural pectin from the seeds. After making yuzu jam, we packed small packets of green tea; thirty of them into one bag. Daisuke's relatives came for the morning and helped us pack. We said goodbye after a tea break of manju and bread. Kat and I then played with Seita for several hours before accompanying the family into town.
November 18th
I'm at the Haruno-cho festival today. I already ate two sweet potatoes and okonomiyake (cabbage pancake). We're waiting to see Daisuke and Madoka in thier dance performances. We just watched an eating contest. One chubby townsman downed his seven bowls of noodles long before any of the others. It was the clearest victory I'd seen in anything in a long time.
I felt a surreal flashback when three schoolgirls ran up to me calling my name. Are they former students from Iiyama? How did they get here? What are they doing in this small town in the mountains of Shizuoka prefecture? All of these questions flashed in my mind before I realized that they were from the evening cram school that Daisuke and Madoka ran. I had introduced myself to the group when I first arrived in Haruno-cho. The experience took me back to living in Iiyama when hearing high school aged students call out my name was a daily occurrence.
November 19th
I had been keeping a pretty good journal, but through my desire study Japanese I missed two days. ON the 19th, I helped Daisuke clear off the cedar boughs from the tea plants. The 20th found us weeding the tea fields across the street from where we were the day before. Daisuke pointed out the holes that wild boars had dug in search of earthworms. Both Kat and I did more weeding today. I enjoyed it, and I felt that I learned a little about tea farming. We ate sunchokes in miso-soup for lunch. I was prety excited to talk about sunchokes, as they had been one of my staple foods through the month of October.
Madoka entertained us with some old koto songs in the evening. I closed my eyes and felt as if I were in a fantasy world, where koto notes echoed through the bamboo forests.
November 20th
Today was the last full day of work. We shucked soybeans in the greenhouse for several hours. Madoka will use the white soybeans to make miso. Black soybeans can also be made into miso, but they are so rare that it's almost impossible to buy it in stores.
After work we jumped into the car and drove to the top of Mt. Haruno, where stood a thirteen century old cedar tree. I had seen old drees before, but this one was straight out of a fantasy setting. It called out for pointy eared folk to construct cabins in its cavernous crotches. Peering over the base of the cedar sat a shinto shrine. Most shrines in Japan are guarded by foxes or koma-inu, a fat dragon-looking dog. Some small shrines are even guarded by small mouse statues. This one, however, was guarded by wolves. As Daisuke explained, wolves were honored in former times because they kept down the population of crop eating beasts such as boar and deer.
As great as that ancient cedar was, it was the view from the parking lot that truly overwhelmed me. An entire mountain range unfolded before me, behind which rose the snowcapped peaks of the far off southern alps. Despite living in the hilly driftless area of Wisconsin, it had been almost two years since I had seen a view like that. It was a long overdue fix. I am a mountain addict.
